What is Death?
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Death is a flexible concept. Irene Adler knew that better than most.
1. Irene's Death

Death was a flexible concept. As long as you didn't exist you were dead. And if you were dead you were forgotten.

Irene Adler wasn't dead.

And even if she was dead she wouldn't be forgotten - Sherlock Holmes didn't forget anything.

Irene knew her poisons. She could tell them apart by smell, by taste. She could feel them even when they were invisible.

She knew something was off. It was her favourite restaurant and she knew it well. Something was wrong.

Moran was there.

And she knew she was going to die.

When she'd worked that out it was only the matter of making sure that didn't happen. What was death? It was the concept of not existing, of ceasing to matter. If she was dead she would still exist – everything mattered to Sherlock Holmes and she knew she meant more than most.

Her tongue had suffered terribly - she'd torn right through it. When Moriarty had assumed she was swallowing her tea, she'd been swallowing her own blood.

She'd thrown it back up again. Back up onto her favourite handkerchief.

After that all it had taken was some dramatic stumbling and an undignified fall.

Moran had wanted to check she was dead.

Moriarty was so sure if himself he stopped only to take her handkerchief. She lay there for a while - more than long enough for Moriarty and Moran to leave.

They'd wanted her dead.

She was still alive. She existed. In their eyes she was dead and because of that they would be blind to her – for now. Moriarty was good. If she was careless she could exist again, before she wanted to.

She'd outsmarted Moriarty.

Sherlock _would_ be impressed.

But for now she would play dead. Forgotten women, dead women, could travel much more easily.

She wanted her handkerchief back.


	2. Sherlock

**I decided I'm going to make this in a three-shot, so here's the second chapter. Please read and review x**

Moriarty had handed him her handkerchief, soaked in blood, splattering onto the letters sewn into the corner, the cursive IEA. It was hers - he knew that for definite, but that didn't mean she was dead.

But she had bled.

Moriarty had made her bleed, had hurt her. Maybe even hurt her badly enough to kill her, but he wouldn't entirely believe Moriarty until he saw it with his own eyes, and perhaps not even after then.

The protective rage that surged up in him was almost unknown to him, something that confused him more than it enraged him.

He didn't feel strongly about everyone, he saw everything but he didn't necessarily care - not unless it was important to a case.

Except for Watson and Irene, and even John was referred to by his surname.

He cared about Irene, more than he had about anyone else in his life. She was good at what she did, better than anyone else was in her profession.

She had beaten him.

It was the thrill of the chase.

Only now she had been caught - and not by him.

She might be dead. A single tear slipped down his cheek, more than he'd let loose for anyone before. She might be dead and he hadn't been there for her.

But what is death?

She would never be forgotten by him. He didn't forget anything.


	3. John

**This is the last bit x Please read and review to tell me what you think x**

He doesn't really know what kind of relationship Irene and Sherlock have. They seem to dance around each other, close, but never quite touching, in a way that is almost surreal to John now that he's got Mary. They seem quite content to skirt around the other, flirting and playing the game but never raising the stakes.

John can honestly say he doesn't understand it.

Why do they wait?

Both their lives are dangerous, and one of them is likely to die before the age of fifty if the rest of the world has its way. But no, no matter what John tries to hint at, and he makes hints that he knows both Irene and Sherlock understand clearly, neither of them want to tell the other how they feel, perfectly content to hide sentimental things like _feeling_ in the darkness of the shadows.

Neither of them are willing to risk telling the truth, because with the lives they life telling the truth is a dangerous game, and not one either of them are willing to play.

And they are on a boat sailing over the English Channel, Sherlock looking more serious than John had ever seen him, with a bloodied handkerchief clutched in his hand and the stitched letter IEA barely visible in the corner.

Sherlock stands up and lets the handkerchief go, flying out over the water.

John watches it settle and then start to sink, falling beneath the surface.

Neither of them told the other how they felt.

And if Irene is gone like John suspects she is, John knows that his friend is suffering pretty badly right now.

only Sherlock is Sherlock, and even John doesn't know what to do with him, so he pretends he can't guess that Irene's dead, and pretends that death is something that doesn't happen to any of them because it's easier that way.

Death doesn't exist for them, or else Sherlock will start to regret things and then Moriarty will get away.

And that's something none of them can afford.


	4. Sherlock's Death

Before they know it, Sherlock is just as read as Irene - i.e. not at all. Not that John knows that.

Sherlock knows, even as he jumps down the waterfall with Moriarty, that his plan is crazy, insane, and that he is the only one who would have thought of it. That is true of most of his plans. It is only pure luck that he survives, that and Mycroft (not that he'd ever let his brother know it), but the thought doesn't shake him. You get used to those kinds of odds living his kind of life. London at night is not a safe place to be.

And before _he_ knows it he's dead - or at least to the rest of the world. Only Irene's dead for real.

Or maybe she isn't. After all one day it occurs to him that she's just as good as him and if he could manage to fool Moriarty with this then maybe she could to.

That thought is what carries him through the next three years until he sees John again, until he can live again. Until then he is merely a ghost, a figure in the back of their minds.

And maybe Irene is as well.


	5. Hope

He comes back after three years having spent most of his time away hunting down the remnants of Moriarty's crime circle and looking for Irene over his shoulder.

She's never there. But he doesn't give up hope - if there's one person capable of beating him it's Iren Adler. She always beaten him, always been one step ahead. He wouldn't be at all surprised if she was now. In fact he half expects that he would be disappointed if she wasn't. She's been beating him for so long the change of pace would be, admittedly, disconcerting.

It's the hope that keeps him going, because somehow it inspires the hope that one day he can go back home, to John and Mycroft and Mrs Hudson and maybe even Mary. Hope is something this isn't usual for him - he's a realist. A detective can't believe in things like hope, that's what other people believe in.

But the three years are long and hard and lonely and he needs _something_ or else he'll go mad, if he isn't already.

Irene Adler is what keeps him going.

And if she's alive he might even tell her that.

He probably won't though. Sherlock Holmes doesn't do emotion or soppiness.


	6. Alive

He doesn't do emotions. But he knows he can tells himself that all he likes and he won't believe it, because when it comes to her he does a lot of things he thought he'd never do.

She is alive, just as he'd thought (hoped).

He is alive, just as she'd known (hoped).

And John is thoroughly exasperated with the pair of them for putting him through that.

Mary just looks confused.

Their first meeting after death goes much as Sherlock had imagined - much slapping and shouting and someone crying (he thinks it was John, no it wasn't _him_).

And it ends _very_ differently, with Irene seeming to roll her eyes at a non-existent God and pin him to the wall.

Yes, she's definitely alive. In fact both of them are, even though two of the four in this room are legally dead and the other two are blushing so hard they look like they want to be.

Because death is a concept both Irene and Sherlock understand. And when Sherlock Holmes understands anything it is even easier to evade.

Death is just a perception.

And right now, both of them are _very_ much alive.


End file.
